NEW DELHI: The government has ruled out any duty concessions for gold or easing of intellectual property rights (IPR) regime for the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries, led by Switzerland.
The four-nation trading bloc includes Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein with the terms of trade heavily tilted in favour of EFTA, given the massive gold imports from Switzerland. In fact, of the $13. 6-billion imports so far this year, around $12. 9 billion are from Switzerland.
Switzerland has been demanding a lower or zero import duty regime for gold, something that was first turned down by Indian authorities almost a decade ago. Besides, it wants concessions on the patent regime, given the interests of global drug giants such as Novartis and Roche, which see the Indian law to be too rigid as there are checks on what the government believes are provisions to check “evergreening” or extension of patents through small tweaks.

During April-February, gold imports from the trading bloc add up to around $10. 5 billion. Any duty concession will not just come at a cost to the Indian exchequer in the form of duty loss but also reducing the flexibility available with the Centre to change import tariffs according to its requirements.
With India pursuing talks with the EU and the UK, EFTA negotiators recently met Indian officials, including commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal, who is also learnt to have pressed for opening up of the lucrative services sector in these highincome nations.
Sources told TOI that the government has also had discussions with some of the pharma giants from Switzerland to discuss how Indian companies could collaborate.